Tag Archives: option nationale

Canada, Quebec, Romania

Québec votes today

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Canada’s only French-speaking and second-largest province goes to the polls today to elect the 125-member Assemblée nationale — Quebec’s politics are a fascinating subset of Canadian politics (notwithstanding the fact that the election will likely have a minimal impact on federal Canadian politics).

Rather than try to provide my own rundown and projection, I’ll leave it to Éric Grenier of ThreeHundredEight: his ridiculously detailed (and amazing) projection calls for a majority government led by the leftist, sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ), although just barely.

Polls show three top parties since premier Jean Charest announced snap elections and kicked off the campaign on August 1:

  • Charest’s own Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) — Charest has governed the province since 2003, and the Liberals are seeking their fourth consecutive mandate in the face of charges of corruption (the Charbonneau Commission is looking into whether the government traded construction contracts in exchange for political financing) and a government that’s not done enough to boost the economy, despite a flashy plan to develop northern Québec.
  • The PQ, led by Pauline Marois, which is looking to return to provincial government after nearly a decade.
  • The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), led by François Legault, which was formed just last year and which lies vaguely to the right of the PLQ, although not in every way, and which lies somewhere between the sovereigntism of the PQ and the federalism of the PLQ (Legault, a former PQ minister, once supported the 1995 referendum on Québec’s independence, but has said any CAQ government will not pursue a new referendum).  The CAQ’s recruitment of quality candidates has been a boost, none of which more so than former Montréal police chief Jacques Duchesneau, whose presence in the election has been a constant reminder of potential PLQ corruption.

Grenier forecasts 63 seats for the PQ, just 33 seats for the Liberals and 27 for the CAQ.  If true, it would be a bloodbath for Charest’s Liberals, who would stand a chance of being pushed not only out of government, but into third place (while the CAQ becomes the Official Opposition) — it would likely also mean that Charest himself would lose his seat in Sherbrooke, a district where he’s been winning elections since 1984.

Roughly speaking, the PLQ is expected to hold its own in Montréal and its suburbs, where most of the province’s anglophones live (although they comprise 10% or so of the electorate, English-speakers tend to vote en masse for the Liberals, even though there are signs that some may be considering the CAQ).  The CAQ is expected to do well around Québec City further north, and the PQ is expected to do well everywhere else.

A key question will be whether two smaller more radically leftists and sovereigntist parties, Québec solidaire (whose spokeswoman Françoise David performed well in the party leaders debate) and Option nationale, succeed in taking away votes form the PQ — Marois has tread very lightly on the sovereignty issue, making it clear that she’s more interested in governing the province than arranging another referendum.

Increasingly less important over the course of the campaign has been the tuition fee issue — student protests over tuition hikes that shut down Montréal universities, and Charest’s police-heavy (some might say unconstitutionally repressive) response, brough international attention last spring.  Despite Marois’s opposition to tuition hikes and a high-profile PQ candidate in 20-year-old student leader Léo Bureau-Blouin, the issue has not had the salience you might have expected just a few months ago.

I am traveling most of Tuesday, but hopefully will have some brief thoughts much later tonight when we have an idea of which party — PLQ, PQ or CAQ — has won the most seats and whether they’ll command enough seats to have a majority government.

In the meanwhile, a little Céline Dion to help set the election day mood, and of course you can follow all of Suffragio‘s coverage of the election here.

À bientôt!

Canada, Quebec

The key to Québec’s election are the CAQ-leaning francophones, not anglophones

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If voters support the parties in next Tuesday’s Québec election as shown in the latest Leger Marketing poll, it will be with a burst of support among francophone voters for the newly-formed Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

That poll showed, essentially, a three-way race, with the sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ) leading at 33%, with 28% for the CAQ and 27% for premier Jean Charest and his Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ).  Showing the volatility of the race, another poll last week showed Charest’s Liberals with a 35% lead to just 29% for the PQ and 24% for the CAQ.

Although so much has been made of anglophone voters — and their openness to the CAQ — anglophone Quebeckers, which make up roughly 10% of the Québec electorate, are still mostly captive to premier Jean Charest and his Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ).  Despite support from the prominent anglophone politician Robert Libman, the CAQ attracts just 15% of the anglophone vote to 67% for the Liberals (the PQ wins just 9%).

Francophone voters, however, split as follows: 38% to the PQ, 31% to the CAQ, 18% to Charest’s Liberals, 9% to the stridently leftist and sovereigntist Québec solidaire and 3% to the sovereigntist Option nationale, which received the high-profile support of former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau over the weekend.

It should be fairly clear that the 12% of francophone voters supporting Québec solidaire and Option nationale would otherwise be supporting the PQ in this election.  Remember that the first-past-the-post system means that the election next Tuesday will really be 125 separate elections in each election district, so in a close race, that 12% could make the difference.

But to me, the real key to the election is where François Legault and the CAQ are pulling their 30% share of francophone voters, and there are two options:

If the CAQ’s francophone support is coming predominantly from voters who have already decided that they won’t vote for Charest, the CAQ is competing for the same pool of voters as the PQ, which could ultimately lead to Charest pulling off a victory and a minority government.

If the CAQ’s francophone support is coming from voters who, for whatever reason, are attracted to its centrist / vaguely free-market platform, the CAQ is competing with the Liberals, which could allow the PQ to win a minority government.

Given that the election is in large part a referendum on Charest, on Liberal corruption and on the economy that Charest now owns after nine years in office, and given that the CAQ has been purposefully vague about its platform, I think the former is much more likely the case, and it’s why, despite what some polls show, the chances of a fourth consecutive mandate for the Liberals is still a very real possibility. Continue reading The key to Québec’s election are the CAQ-leaning francophones, not anglophones →

Canada, Quebec

Will Québec solidaire break through in next Tuesday’s election?

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When Québec’s major party leaders gathered a few days ago for the only multi-party debate in advance of the election for Québec’s Assemblée nationale on Sept. 4, voters saw three familiar faces: Jean Charest, leader of the Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) and the province’s premier since 2003; Pauline Marois, leader of the sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ), and François Legault, a former PQ minister and leader of the newly-formed and more center-right Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

They also saw a less familiar face: Québec solidaire spokeswoman Françoise David who, along with spokesman Amir Khadir, are the two “spokespersons” for Québec solidaire, a stridently leftist, environmentalist, feminist and sovereigntist party founded in 2006 when several smaller parties merged.

David wasn’t a wholly outsized presence in that debate, but to the extent it was David’s first introduction to many Québec voters, her above-the-fray tone seemed to make a favorable impression.

David and Québec solidaire are, by far, the most leftwing and anti-neoliberal of the four parties (and party leaders) featured in last week’s debates:

  • On student fees, not only does David oppose tuition increases for students, but was the only party leader to wear a red square — the symbol of student protesters — on stage (even though Marois wore it in solidarity with students last spring and has come out strongly in opposition to tuition hikes).
  • On the environment, David has criticized Charest’s Plan Nord, designed to boost mining and other economic efforts in northern Québec, and her party is downright hostile to Québec’s asbestos industry (Québec is essentially the only main producer of asbestos in North America and Europe).
  • On sovereignty, Québec solidaire is firmly in favor of an independent Québec, in contrast to theMONDAY’S PIECE> nuanced “wait and see” approach that Marois has taken.

Continue reading Will Québec solidaire break through in next Tuesday’s election? →

Canada, Quebec

Sovereigntist party runs away from sovereignty issue in Québec election

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The last time Québec held a referendum on independence in 1995, Jacques Parizeau (pictured above in 1995) was the leader of the sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ).

With just over a week to go until Québec votes on Sept. 4 for a new Assemblée nationale, Parizeau, in a sharp rebuke to PQ leader Pauline Marois, endorsed the smaller, more stridently sovereigntist Option nationale, a party formed in 2011 by former PQ legislator  Jean-Martin Aussant.  His move comes with polls showing the PLQ and the PQ see-sawing in the 30% to 35% range for the lead in the election

Marois took the news gracefully, but the Globe and Mail reports that the Parizeau’s snub could jeopardize Marois’s effort to win power.  Normally, it doesn’t speak well of a party leader when a former party leader endorses a rival.

In this instance, I’m not sure that it harms Marois.  To the contrary, it emphasizes the not-so-subtle secret of Marois’s PQ leadership: she’s more interested in forming a government than pushing sovereignty.  That’s the very compliant Aussant aired when he formed Option nationale.

If she wins the election, which is as much a referendum on Charest and his government than anything else, it will be because she has emphasized any number of issues — corruption, strengthening education and health care, promoting Québec industry — to the relative exclusion of sovereignty. Continue reading Sovereigntist party runs away from sovereignty issue in Québec election →